Is there anything, anything at all that is not enlightenment?

Question

Just know what is in front of your face. : )

Answer 1

Nothing that is not, it all depends upon understanding how to understand all that is in front of our face.

Answer 2

Like the first response ... "nope" ... but we do have the capacity to forget that ...

As Ma-tsu said, "The Way is basically easy, just don't defile it. What is defilement? When with a samsaric mind we contrive to do something, then everything is defilement."

Or Dogen ...

"The Way is basically perfect and all pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? The Dharma-vehicle is free and untrammelled. What need is there for a man’s concentrated effort? Indeed, the Whole Body is far beyond the world’s dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?
"And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the Way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is lost in confusion."

And good old Seng-ts'an:

"Do not dwell in dualities,
And scrupulously avoid pursuing the Way!"

"Without yearning or loathing,
The Way is perfectly apparent.
While if there is a hairbreadth’s difference [in prejudicial discrimination],
The Way is as distant as heaven from earth."
.

Answer 3

It is possible,-- just a possibility -- that dislike in its extreme form, 'hatred', as an emotional influence on the mind, is not enlightenment! It is 'dark', as well as 'heavy', both not 'enlightening'! Everything else, events, things, people, emotions, everything, has something, however small and subtle, enlightening about it! Almost every moment of life, therefore, is enlightenment!

Answer 4

All depends on
what we choose to 'see',
with these two eyes
or the one,
to feel as a body
or perceive as a soul,
is the choice we have,
and a battle to be won,
to all it might be
darkness galore
to one a spark within
may guide still more,
Anything can be
Something
of value and use
to enlighten and be special
our conscious needs
to 'fuse'
Then shall there be light
enlightenment as you call
for a Rakshas it is
but a point to muse!


Agree Coyote?

Answer 5

Enlightenment isn't any 'thing', it's an event of Self Realization that occurs through an individualized mind/body. It's Awareness becoming aware of Awareness.

Answer 6

All things have opposites, even enlightenment. Where there is darkness there is no light. Ignorance is not enlightenment.

edit: I am just a babe on the path.

edit2: If I am awake, I am awake to all that is, including ignorance, so I change my answer to "no." Smile.

Answer 7

The word "enlightenment",

Answer 8

Ignorance.

Answer 9

I don't know, I never looked at it in this fashion. I have been thinking on it since you asked the question my friend, & all I can honestly say at this point is that there is not much that does not fill me with awe lately.
Blessings.

Answer 10

I keep searching and searching. It must be out there somewhere. Where is that thing that serves no purpose? I thought I found it once but it pointed me further up the path.